Page 19 of The Christmas Mistake

This. Is. Titillating.

I scrunch up my face at the man. “I’m a lovely lady, am I?” I ask.

“I can think of worse things to be,” the man replies. “Hey, you’re a lady. And you’re pretty damn lovely if I say so myself.”

Oh, he’s very smooth.

I gotta admit, he has me hooked. Let’s just give this a minute to see where this is heading. I’m liking the direction so far.

“What’s your name?” I ask Mister Charming Pants as his friend, Brad comes over. I can feel Evie nudging me in the ribs, and not in a very subtle way either. She’s trying to remind me that this is the most amount of action I’ve had in a long time as if I wasn’t already in the know.

“My name’s Harry.”

I raise an eyebrow. “As in Potter?”

He rolls his eye in mock exasperation. “Don’t get me started on that.”

I giggle. “I bet you’ve heard that all your life.”

“Oh, yes,” he says as he takes out a huge and pretty impressive wad of cash and pays the bartender for the shots. “And what’s your name, lovely lady?”

“Chastity.”

His eyes sparkle. “You can’t tease me for my name when you have a name like that, Chastity.”

“You don’t like it? You find it weird?”

“No,” he replies quietly. “I love it.”

That’s one smooth way to respond to my name…

Right on cue, the Tequilas are ready. Harry hands them out to all of us and we cheer.

“To new friends,” I say.

“To new friends,” Evie repeats.

“To hopefully a lot more than just friends,” Harry says. My insides go all gooey.

We shoot the Tequila down our throats.

Man, I’m already drunk and I’m definitely going to get wasted.

Looking at Harry’s smile, I know it’s gonna be a good Friday night.

The man leans down so that he can speak into my ear. “How about I skip all the bullshit and ask you to kiss me right now,” he whispers so that only I can hear. My body shudders.

Yeah, it’s gonna be a real good Friday night.

I’m about to answer the man, but then my phone rings.

I can hear it from inside my handbag even though the bar is super loud.

It isn’t my personal phone, but my work one. The one I help manage the social media accounts from.

No one ever rings this phone. No one apart from my boss.

I turn to Harry. He’s waiting for my answer on whether or not I’m going to kiss him right now.